After shooting, Wisconsin school and church lean into Christmas message
for comfort
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 [December 21, 2024]
By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
For Christians around the world, Christmas is the joyful celebration of
the birth of Jesus. To affirm their beliefs — that God is present and
hasn’t abandoned them — the faith community at Abundant Life Christian
School in Madison, Wisconsin, is embracing its holiday traditions just
days after a deadly shooting there.
“When people say, ‘Where is your God?’ He is more evident now than he’s
ever been to us,” the Rev. Sarah Karlen told The Associated Press. “I’m
sure the phrase ‘Prince of Peace’ and ‘God with us’ is going to be
leaned into a little more this year.”
Karlen is a pastor at City Church, which in the late 1970s founded the
school where she’s also the theater teacher. This weekend, the church
will hold the funeral of a 14-year-old student, Rubi Patricia Vergara,
killed Monday when another student opened fire, also killing a teacher
and wounding several others at the school on the same campus.
“When we say that God is with us, especially here at Christmas time —
when we say, you know, Emmanuel ‘God with us,’ that he came to Earth to
be with us — I know beyond a shadow of a doubt each and every one of us
here at City Church would say that in a very new way,” Karlen added.
Decked in holiday light displays, including Christmas trees and a
Nativity scene, the evangelical, nondenominational church with over
1,200 members also hosted a vigil service Tuesday.
Then, drawing from Scripture and particularly the Book of Job, pastors
addressed the challenge of reconciling faith in a loving God with his
allowing great suffering to occur.
Karlen also challenged some of the taunts on the school’s social media
that questioned its religious beliefs. To the assembly’s applause, she
repeatedly affirmed God’s presence in the midst of the grieving and the
weariness.
“None of us on our staff are saying that we understand why or how
something happened. But we do understand that God sees us, sees things
very differently than we do,” Karlen said later.
Police are continuing to investigate why Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow, 15,
attacked the school before fatally shooting herself. While dozens of
school shootings have happened across the U.S. in recent years, the vast
majority are carried out by teenage boys and young men.
Barbara Wiers said faith is helping teachers, students and families make
peace with the possibility they will never have complete answers.
“There may never be sense made out of this senseless tragedy. But. God,
right? God understands, and God was there, and God is still here,” said
Wiers, the school’s director for elementary education and
communications. “Ultimately, it’s not about man’s judgment, although
there’s going to be all of that — because of the legal system and how
that plays out. But God’s just judgment will reign. And we trust him for
that.”
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Supporters hold candles during a candlelight vigil Tuesday, Dec. 17,
2024, outside the Wisconsin Capitol in Madison, Wis., following a
shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School on Monday, Dec. 16.
(AP Photo/Morry Gash)
The school remains closed as staff work to repair the physical
damage so that it won’t retraumatize teachers and students
immediately upon their return, Wiers said. Safety and wellness
protocols are also being reviewed.
But on Christmas Eve, City Church plans to hold caroling and
candlelight services, hoping that the community will draw comfort
from the familiar traditions.
“We know this is a long road for all of us, but the start is to be
in the presence of God with one another, and to hug one another, and
to sing together, to pray together,” Karlen said.
Other churches affiliated with the school, as well as the broader
community in Madison, quickly came together to help, from alumni
starting food drives to evangelical ministries sending chaplains to
pastors sitting up with those hospitalized.
“Healing will come slowly, but they will not be left alone,” said
the Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council
of Churches, whose member organizations include about 2,000 churches
and 1 million Christians.
Abundant Life Christian School is part of Impact Christian Schools,
a network of private educational institutions that welcome families
regardless of their creed, said Impact’s executive director Chuck
Moore.
Moore said he hoped the shooting’s occurrence so close to the
holidays wouldn’t forever tie Christmas with tragedy for the
community.
“Even in the midst of awful, it’s still a time we can rejoice,”
Moore said. “We can focus our celebration on who Christ is.”
Already teachers at the school have talked about Jesus and faith in
“every classroom, every subject, all day long, because God isn’t
siloed to Sunday,” Wiers said. And that focus will continue when the
school reopens sometime in January.
“We’re changed. Our family is changed. But God hasn’t changed. He
didn’t move. He hasn’t been altered at all,” Wiers said. “And the
message hasn’t changed. God is good. God is good all the time. He is
faithful and he is true. And while we are brokenhearted, he’s going
to walk us through this.”
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